My word, Greg, that’s the last time I judge one of your columns by the intro paragraph on the home page and skip it. Sorry. I had several of those books (still have “Mission: Impossible,” sort of; it’s a replacement copy obtained in the late 70s), but had completely forgotten about the Challengers novel. First I’ve heard that those Maggin/Superman novels were so good. Indeed, the story at the time was that they WERE exploiting the films and the only reason neither was a novelization was that the amount of money Mario Puzo would have had to be paid was prohibitive. But again, no more skipping over, and my apologies for having done so.

When Gil Kane or Gulacy did it, Coburn stayed Coburn throughout.

As for the late Byron Preiss, I really liked his paperback book series, “Weird Heroes” (if I’m remembering that title right), eight volumes, I believe, most collecting short works but a scattered few were novels, all illustrated. Features included debuts of his own Gutz (again, if I’m…) and Philip Jose Farmer’s Greatheart Silver, as well as a character created by the same team that re–reinvented DC’s Paul Kirk, Manhunter (after the Simon/Kirby team reinvented him in the 40s), Archie Goodwin (R.I.P., guy) and Walt Simonson. I have only a vague memory of the name being Stalker, and am wide open to correction there. He was half Native American, the illegitimate offspring of the wife an “Indian Agent.” Wish I still had my copies. Anybody else remember these things, and if so, fondly?

The Sacred And The Profance was printed in book form by Eclipse, but it was not a collection of the serial as printed in Star*Reach. Instead, it was a collection of the revamped serial that Motter and Stacy produced for Epic Illustrated (in full color). The Scared And The Profane is one of my favorite comic serials, which is why I know.

I enjoyed the Sternako Chandler book. There was a rumor that Dark Horse was going to reprint it but that never happened.

Personally, I would really like to see Steranko’s Outland adaption reprinted. It was serialized in Heavy Metal magazine and it is probably one of my Sternako works.

I like reading McGregor.
Even if I don’t like the story, I like the experience of reading him.
Just looking at it and seeing how close he got to being the one.

Can someone tell me what Don McGregor’s Sabre was about, and which meaty issues of the day McGregor tackles within it?

A noble, passionate man in a fractured, feudalistic dystopian future America fights to retain his individuality and freedom against a corrupt and decadent authority… but still must, in the end, walk away from the woman he loves and the unborn child of his that she is carrying. “Why does it COST so much to take a STAND??”

Plus lots of goofball SF satire stuff…. the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach you saw in a lot of late 70′s science-fiction comics. Swords and rayguns, gladitorial combat arenas and clone vats. Etc. It’s kind of the one-stop shop for everything that we ever saw in 70′s space-opera comics. Smoosh together Kamandi and Killraven and Deathlok’s worlds and you get Sabre’s vile, decadent America of 2020.

In fairness, the art from Paul Gulacy is absolutely stunning, and McGregor, despite the usual over-writing, crafted a pretty fair adventure. I make fun of the book mostly because at the time we all thought it was the Next Great Leap — there’s back-cover pull-quote blurbs from Gary Groth and Ed Via about how Important!! this book is. “First graphic novel produced for the direct market.” Remember, we were all obsessed with format back then, and everyone was thinking about what the book represented as a first step, as opposed to what it WAS. But it doesn’t really hold up, and all our huffing and puffing about how this would break comics out of the nerd ghetto at last seems… well, as silly as it looks when I type it out.

You really have no IDEA how fixated we all were on the idea of mainstream acceptance. And McGregor was determined to prove that comics could be Adult, they could Do It All, and as a result he tried to cram in everything he could think of.

It’s worth picking up, though, if you can get it cheap. I paid $3 for mine from a bargain bin and that seems about right.

…and yeah, I’ve read a lot of junk, but you have to remember, I’ve been reading these things for forty years, and you kind of have to have a taste for junk culture in the first place if you love comics enough to write about them. So it’s not really a burden. Besides, I read fast.

He looks like a pirate, the girl looks ‘modern’, there’s a castle and a futuristic city.
It confuses me.

As for the other stuff, sometimes I wish I’d read everything Greg Hatcher has.
But then I realise how much bad he must have read to be able to bring us the good.

http://joglikescomics.blogspot.com/2005/02/old-stuff-from-todays-stars-part-1-of.html

He argues that it’s an early version of the “widescreen” style of comics art that’s been so popular in the early 21st century. Good stuff!

I’ve seen a “Best of” Star*Reach mini-series (First Comics?). Would that contain most of the worthwhile stuff from the series or should I really seek out the originals?

Well, not MOST. Some. It only ran six issues, from Eclipse. I think those reprints concentrated mostly on the shorter pieces; the idea was, I think, to collect the longer serials in trade. “Sacred and the Profane” got a nice trade paperback collection, and I think some of Russell’s stuff was redone for Night Music. Not sure, though. Beyond that I couldn’t tell you.

Thanks…

Joe

P.S. Nice piece by the way!

Around the same age, I sampled the Warren magazines: There was some good work in the horror mags, but it was their Spirit reprints that won my heart.

I was (and am) a huge comics fan, but even so, as a raging-hormones male adoescent, I found that there was no good reason to wade through Heavy Metal since I knew where my older brother stashed his Playboys. They seemed to be going after the same audience.

Years later, “RAW” was a revalation. Not all of it “worked” for me, but the stuff that did–and I’m not only talking about “Maus” here–was mind-blowing.

I love these kinds of posts–keep it up!

None of which is a slam on Doyle, by the way. I’m as big a Holmes geek as I am a comics geek. But I’m surprised there are so many of us reading this.

I don’t care for Laurie King’s stuff myself. Nicholas Meyers is okay. My Holmes pastiche of choice is the Irene Adler series by Carole Nelson Douglas.